Post by erik on Aug 7, 2021 17:14:14 GMT -5
The best known of all African-American composers, William Grant Still, is in this week's Classical Works Spotlight with a symphonic poem that vividly descrives his people's native land.
William Grant Still: AFRICA
If Aaron Copland was the “dean of American composers”, then William Grant Still pretty much amounted as the dean of African-American composers, with a style and a sound in his orchestral works that was every bit as American as Copland’s visions of small-town New England, the Old West, or the northern Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania. Still’s first two symphonies, the Afro-American (#1) and Song Of A New Race (#2), were the first symphonies by an African-American composer performed by major symphonic orchestras in the United States in the early 1930’s, when Jim Crow was still more or less the unspoken law of the land (and it was more in the South). Not long after the Afro-American Symphony made its hugely successful debut with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra under fellow composer Howard Hanson, Still came up with a three-part symphonic tone poem entitled “Africa”, which evokes the land of his and millions of other Black people’s ancestors. Though it originally began as a quasi-concerto for flute (French flautist Georges Barrere was first to perform it) and chamber orchestra, Still eventually expanded it into a full orchestral work neatly divided into three sections: (1) Land Of Peace; (2) Land Of Romance; and (3) Land Of Superstition. Pastoral and spiritual peace are, according to the composer, what he wanted to evoke in the first section; the second focuses on sadness and passionate longing; and the third speaks of unspoken fears and future terrors, concluding in a final orchestral blaze in F Minor. “Africa” was premiered by the Rochester Philharmonic under Hanson, as the Afro-American Symphony had been, on October 24, 1930, and received an enthusiastic applause. However, it wasn’t until 2004, twenty-six years after Still passed on (in 1978), that it got its first recording, with John Jeter and the Fort Smith Symphony Orchestra.
Fort Smith Symphony Orchestra/JOHN JETER (Naxos)
Included:
SYMPHONY NO. 1 IN A FLAT MAJOR (AFRO-AMERICAN)
IN MEMORIAM
William Grant Still: AFRICA
If Aaron Copland was the “dean of American composers”, then William Grant Still pretty much amounted as the dean of African-American composers, with a style and a sound in his orchestral works that was every bit as American as Copland’s visions of small-town New England, the Old West, or the northern Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania. Still’s first two symphonies, the Afro-American (#1) and Song Of A New Race (#2), were the first symphonies by an African-American composer performed by major symphonic orchestras in the United States in the early 1930’s, when Jim Crow was still more or less the unspoken law of the land (and it was more in the South). Not long after the Afro-American Symphony made its hugely successful debut with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra under fellow composer Howard Hanson, Still came up with a three-part symphonic tone poem entitled “Africa”, which evokes the land of his and millions of other Black people’s ancestors. Though it originally began as a quasi-concerto for flute (French flautist Georges Barrere was first to perform it) and chamber orchestra, Still eventually expanded it into a full orchestral work neatly divided into three sections: (1) Land Of Peace; (2) Land Of Romance; and (3) Land Of Superstition. Pastoral and spiritual peace are, according to the composer, what he wanted to evoke in the first section; the second focuses on sadness and passionate longing; and the third speaks of unspoken fears and future terrors, concluding in a final orchestral blaze in F Minor. “Africa” was premiered by the Rochester Philharmonic under Hanson, as the Afro-American Symphony had been, on October 24, 1930, and received an enthusiastic applause. However, it wasn’t until 2004, twenty-six years after Still passed on (in 1978), that it got its first recording, with John Jeter and the Fort Smith Symphony Orchestra.
Fort Smith Symphony Orchestra/JOHN JETER (Naxos)
Included:
SYMPHONY NO. 1 IN A FLAT MAJOR (AFRO-AMERICAN)
IN MEMORIAM